Conversational CX Maturity: How to go from basic to best-in-class customer experience

We’re in a fiercely competitive era of communication technology. Companies are constantly competing for market share and the latest innovations, while customers are looking for more personalized experiences—and they’re willing to leave long-standing loyalties for a company that truly makes the effort. 

Despite the rat race, 94% of brands are facing digital business challenges that hinder their ability to offer conversational customer experiences. 

So, what can brands do to resolve their digital struggles and stand out as the North Star of CX? That means not only in their industry but to be globally recognized as conversational innovators. 

Well, for that we need to back track and dive deep into the rapid advancement of technology and how the past has influenced where we are today. Alvin Toffler’s “Third Wave” provides a fascinating framework to understand how our society has evolved along with communication systems: 

First wave: Agricultural society 

Second wave: Industrial age 

Third Wave: Information age 

We have now entered the fourth wave, where Generative AI has revolutionized interactions and powered Conversational Experience as a Service. With advancements in AI, automation, chat apps, and, most critically, data, we can deliver hyper-personalized conversational experiences. Rich messaging channels are accelerating the adoption of these experiences, making them faster, smarter, and more engaging than ever through the power of GenAI.  

Technology stacks are now democratized and composable. Channels and platforms that power conversations are no longer unchanging, and the use cases are now two-way interactions that blend emotional empathy with intelligent technology. Brands that recognize this shift and invest in conversational customer experiences are leaders in conversational success. 

So, how do you get there?  

Conversational Customer Experience (CX) has emerged as the key differentiator between brands that understand how to connect with their audiences using composable technology and ones that struggle to evolve with the times. 

At Infobip, we believe communication cannot happen in isolation, and similarly technological success is based on the foundation of composability, ability to leverage data and understanding customer sentiment to provide hyper-personalized conversational experiences at scale. That’s why we’ve worked to create a Conversational CX Maturity benchmark that helps brands understand how effective their communication strategies are, and what they can do to improve their practices. 

Read on to find out what makes a brand mature in Conversational CX, and how your own brand can make strategic changes that will boost conversions, engagement, and customer satisfaction rates.  

We identified two key areas that influence a brand’s maturity:

All these factors individually contribute to a brand’s maturity, although it is the holistic view of a brand’s approach to journey building and sophistication that influences overall maturity. For example, a brand could be mature in that they use various messaging channels or automate multiple use cases, but lacking technological sophistication hinders Conversational Maturity.  

Our assessment of 206 enterprise-level brands from four major industries (retail, finance, telco, and healthcare) worldwide shows that on average brands are just above a mid-level of maturity: 

All in all, it’s how these factors are connected and the cohesive approach to Conversational CX that differentiates innovators and customer-centric brands from followers and challengers.

Simply put, the best way to offer stellar customer experiences is through conversations. Customers are now expecting brands to have those conversations with them digitally, on various channels, and avoiding call centers as much as possible.  

Brands tend to have a good understanding of this and on average use about 6 channels for communicating with customers. Some of the most popular channels include:  

But despite the use of multiple digital channels, only 33% of brands have them all strategically integrated and in-sync, and only 36% of brands have fully integrated software and tools.  

This means that 2/3 of brands struggle to offer consistent, seamless, and high-quality customer experiences, meaning they will have a much harder time building stronger relationships, brand loyalty, and operational efficiency due to poor or low integration. 

Interestingly, despite the low level of channel integration, 80% of brands claim to have an omnichannel strategy, with 28% stating that they still struggle to meet their goals. Without proper channel integration, it’s not possible to have a stable omnichannel strategy.  

This tells us that brands are likely leaning into a multi-channel approach and missing the opportunity to mature into proper omnichannel communication due to lack of integration. 

This is further supported by the fact that only: 

A truly effective omnichannel strategy that brings about results would need a journey builder and customer data platform. These tools play a key role in collecting data across all channels and interactions to build customer profiles and use that information to design and launch meaningful and personalized customer journeys on any channel. 

A brand that is highly mature in Conversational CX would have about 6 channels fully integrated with an omnichannel strategy, so they could:  

89% of brands across the board are automating interactions with customers. At first glance, this might lead some to conclude that most brands are then mature when it comes to using automation – but that’s not necessarily the case. 

The tools and use cases that brands focus on when it comes to automation heavily influence their Conversational CX Maturity. For instance, brands tend to focus customer support interactions when it comes to automation, and fall behind on automating other important use cases for marketing or sales: 

70% of brands use chatbots for customer communication. Chatbots are an amazing tool for speeding up time to resolution and automating communication for repetitive inquiries. But there are many types of chatbots, and a brand that invests in creating one that can handle a wide range of use cases, needs little human intervention, and can cover more than customer support tasks is a level above.

Despite the high adoption rate of chatbots, brands across the board are still relying heavily on live agents to handle customer support cases, which halts the growth of their maturity:  

It’s no surprise then to learn that 50% of brands struggle with overloaded call centers and long wait times when their customer support agents are tasked with resolving nearly all interactions with customers.  

Even when we look deeper at what use cases are automated, most often brands will focus their efforts on low-level customer support use cases that don’t require too much integration tools or tech set-up 

The story with AI is a similar one. Brands tend to focus their efforts with AI around customer support, and less so in marketing and sales:

The focus on customer support is understandable. Brands want their customers to have a fast and pleasant experience when they reach out for help. But the lack of investment in the rest of the customer journey leads to brands missing the chance to grow their CX maturity.  

To level up automation even further, brands need to leverage the latest AI technology to improve natural language understanding, context-awareness, and predictive capabilities – enabling them to cover marketing and sales use cases more seamlessly. This will allow brands to engage customers in more meaningful, personalized ways, anticipate their needs, and solve problems before they even arise. 

A truly mature conversational experience would include automating interactions across the journey, incorporating data collected to create hyper-personalized experiences that bring about tailored offers, cross sell and upselling opportunities, and of course a reliable customer support system with a chatbot that handles the most repetitive tasks. Powered by AI tools, brands can lower the stress on overworked and fragmented operations and customer support agents. This would bring brands the best results including:  

Achieving Conversational CX Maturity is becoming a necessity for brands that want to thrive in an increasingly competitive, digital-first landscape. To become conversationally mature, brands must invest in advanced AI tools, seamless channel integration, and a deep understanding of customer behavior. This means evolving from simple, reactive chatbots to sophisticated, AI-driven systems that can engage proactively and offer personalized experiences across every touchpoint. 

Conversational CX Maturity isn’t just about keeping up with technology—it’s about putting the customer at the heart of everything you do. Brands that invest in conversational excellence will see tangible benefits: higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, better operational efficiency, and a stronger competitive edge. By delivering consistent, personalized, and seamless experiences, mature brands create lasting connections that lead to higher customer lifetime value and long-term business success.